Modeling competitive interactions and plant-soil feedback in vegetation dynamics

TL;DR

This paper develops a mathematical PDE model to explore how plant-soil feedback mechanisms influence the coexistence and spatial patterns of competing plant species in non-limiting water environments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel four PDE model that incorporates both positive and negative inter- and intra-specific plant-soil feedbacks to analyze species coexistence.

Findings

Model demonstrates conditions for coexistence and dominance of plant species.

Spatial vegetation patterns emerge based on feedback mechanisms.

Both positive and negative feedbacks significantly affect plant competition outcomes.

Abstract

Plant-soil feedback is recognized as a causal mechanism for the emergence of vegetation patterns of the same species especially when water is not a limiting resource (e.g. humid environments). Nevertheless, in the field, plants rarely grow in monoculture but compete with other plant species. In these cases, plant-soil feedback was shown to play a key role in plant-species coexistence. Using a mathematical model consisting of four PDEs, we investigate mechanisms of inter- and intra-specific plant-soil feedback on the coexistence of two competing plant species. In particular, the model takes into account both negative and positive feedback influencing the growth of the same and the other plant species. Both the coexistence of the plant species and the dominance of a particular plant species is examined with respect to all model parameters together with the emergence of spatial vegetation patterns.